Lately I occasionally get redirected to other websites when I load some news websites.
It could be a banner redirect I guess, but I suspect something more sinister.

The iPad is NOT jailbroken and runs the latest iOS 5

Last three incidents were

clicking a link in an email from linkedIn which linked to an article on Forbes.com. When the article loaded, it was replaced (or a link popped up in a new window - not sure now) with a site that was surely not a forbes advertiser.

using the twitter app, I clicked a tweet from spitsnieuws.nl, it opened a pane inside the twitter app with the article, once it had loaded, it was replaced with a site surely not a spitsnieuws advertiser.

5 Answers
5

The fact that the pages DO load, and only switch to another page AFTER they have loaded, indicates to me that the problem lies within the page itself. For instance some "evil" Javascript is inserted into the page causing it to redirect.

If the problem was in the OS, for instance messing with DNS, I would expect that you would never be able to reach the page and you would immediately be getting the "evil" page.

Ad networks have often been used for this kind of abuse because there are many parties providing content for ads, so it is hard to check everything that goes on. I would think that an evil advertisement is much more likely to be the cause of this problem than any malware on your iOS device.

You could try using your iPad via proxy and monitor the traffic that comes through. You could set your computer to share its internet connection over Wifi, and run a html proxy on your computer. And then look in the transferred code to see if you can identify the cause of the redirects.

If your device is not jailbroken the odds of malware on iOS are basically 0, at least for what you're describing. There is currently no way anything could be installed without going through the App Store. Even then, a malicious app could only access its own files in its own sandbox. So, no installed app on iOS could modify anything outside of it.

This is also why you won't find any app scanning your iPad for malware. A malware scanner would need access to all system files but no app on iOS could do that (except for Apple's own apps).

This sounds more like a problem made by the particular websites themselves.

As I said, nothing on iOS can modify system settings except Settings.app itself. Mobile Safari allows no plugins. If you visited the within the twitter app, then it's not Safari.app but only a UIWebView. This is even more restricted than Safari. So there's nothing to scan for and no app would be allowed to have such functionality.
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kremaliciousJun 18 '12 at 15:04

2

" So what do you suggest? Spitsnieuws.nl and Forbes.com both serving porn redirects? I have a hard time believing that. – mplungjan " the company name/website alone is NOT a security feature
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user24153Jun 18 '12 at 17:47

Sure sounds like something with the target websites. You could install Wireshark on a laptop with wi-fi, monitor your traffic when you visit the site and see what happens. You could then do the same from another (working) machine and see if the same HTTP messages are sent/received.

Also, now that Chrome is out on the iPad, you could try that to see if it behaves differently.

Are you travelling in Spain when the redirect happens? If so, I'm seeing it here as well and I believe it is the ad serving network serving a geographic ad from Spain (perhaps other countries too) that is redirecting to the porn ads.

If a malware want to infect in you iPad from Safari, it need a exploit from Safari, if a exploit like that was found and they post it on the news, Apple will fix it to avoid Jailbreak ASAP. So if you running latest iOS and not jailbroken so no need to worry.

Also it would not be the first time I was the first to see an exploit on a computer. Never had a virus but did receive some new ones in the mail. To get adware you do not need to exploit the browser. Just intercept the requests or the replies
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mplungjanJun 19 '12 at 6:17

@mplungjan I'm really not sure what you want us all to say. Multiple people pointed out you can't "scan" for malware on the iPad except checking your Settings. Your question has been answered multiple times. Just waiting for a confirmation of your theories isn't going to work. If you have read all the answers why are you still starting unproven theories like "to get adware you do not need to exploit the browser"? I repeat: this is technically not possible on the iPad, how iOS works is fundamentally different from all your other computers. Everyone here pointed this out already.
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kremaliciousJun 23 '12 at 13:20

Is it still occurring? If not, then that is another pointer that the source is outside your iPad. If the problem was on those websites or on an ad network they all used, I would expect it to be found and solved by now.
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Michael van der GriendtJun 26 '12 at 8:48